BriteTab Lets You Add Videos, Photos to Resumes
For jobseekers looking to stand out from the crowd, BriteTab offers the opportunity to create "resumes with personality." What does this mean? Users can set up customizable online resumes with multimedia features such as video clips, links, and photos.
The site is easy to use and pricing starts at $7 per month for Bronze membership and runs up to $18 per month for the Gold membership. At the bronze level, you get unlimited resumes and up to 20MB of storage, roughly 15 minutes of video fame, according to the site. Gold gives you the same unlimited resumes and 100MB of storage. There is a 10-day free trial on all memberships. The site provides help via how-to videos and lets you view sample resumes.
You can create your own video to add, say, an explanation of your most recent position or a particular accomplishment of which you are proud. Or, you can have one of your letters of recommendation be a video.
In theory, BriteTab is a great idea: A creative yet professional resume that gives potential employers a hint of your personality can mean the difference in a tough job market. Further, and especially important for first-time job-seekers, BriteTab can provide either continuity with other online profiles (provided you've kept a clean nose of Facebook) or an opportunity to "explain" those embarrassing photos, posts, and status updates. Yes, employers check those, too.
However, I'm not so sure that the rest of the hiring world is as color blind as Chris Matthews claims to be. I worry that a video or photo-based resume could provide an opportunity for further discrimination.
Still, there is no denying that BriteTab in on the right track in terms of providing job seekers with an additional and valuable tool to add to their job-search arsenal. I can only hope that the rest of the world catches up.
Still…am I wrong to be so suspicious?
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Discrimination from hiring managers is an understandable concern when you're dealing with any multimedia component in a resume. There are even some hiring managers who refuse to look at resumes with photos attached for fear of litigation from job seekers. One must remember, though, that the concept will evolve beyond the liberal arts students essentially forced to create them to stand out, and you'll no longer have anything to fear.
In the short term, I think the online resume (along with any social media component during your job hunting) is merely intended to augment the traditional "dead tree" model. But as we see more and more students enter the workforce in a contracting labor market, they'll soon become a necessity and before long we'll be unable to remember a time without them.
The bottom line: education in this country is being forced to change at a rapid pace to keep up with the multitasking real world, and as such we've evolved from a "shut up and do as you're told" mentality to one that encourages hands-on experimentation. A consequence of this is that today's students are gaining experience that isn't easily quantifiable, and an online portfolio presence using services such as BriteTab will eventually be the only realistic approach.
Good post Sony! You're not wrong to be suspicious.. As a young professional myself I wouldn't personally sign up for BriteTab for that very suspicion. I actually debated whether or not to include a photo on my linkedin page.
Oh well, if only we truly lived in a color blind society =)